The Smell of Rain on Dust

The son of a Native American anthropologist and a Swiss paleontologist and raised on a Pueblo Indian reservation in New Mexico, author and artist Martin Prechtel is positioned to be a unique cultural interpreter. Trained as a Tzujutil Maya shaman in Guatemala in the 1970s, Prechtel returned to the West in the 1980s to teach workshops and lead groups to help people reconnect to their own Indigenous Soul. His books and public events have attracted a wide range of followers interested in Earth-honouring cultures, environmental restoration, ritual, shamanism, and personal growth.

"Beautifully written and wise ... Martin Prechtel offers stories that are precious and life-sustaining. Read carefully, and listen deeply." - Mary Oliver, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner

Inspiring hope, solace, and courage in living through our losses, author Martin Prechtel, trained in the Tzutujil Maya shamanic tradition, shares profound insights on the relationship between grief and praise in our culture—how the inability that many of us have to grieve and weep properly for the dead is deeply linked with the inability to give praise for living.

In modern society, grief is something that we usually experience in private, alone, and without the support of a community. Yet, as Prechtel says, "Grief expressed out loud for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is in itself the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honours what it misses."

Prechtel explains that the unexpressed grief prevalent in our society today is the reason for many of the social, cultural, and individual maladies that we are currently experiencing. According to Prechtel, "When you have two centuries of people who have not properly grieved the things that they have lost, the grief shows up as ghosts that inhabit their grandchildren."

These "ghosts," he says, can also manifest as disease in the form of tumours, which the Maya refer to as "solidified tears," or in the form of behavioural issues and depression. He goes on to show how this collective, unexpressed energy is the long-held grief of our ancestors manifesting itself, and the work that can be done to liberate this energy so we can heal from the trauma of loss, war, and suffering.

At base, this "little book," as the author calls it, can be seen as a companion of encouragement, a little extra light for those deep and noble parts in all of us.